Lionheart moe-4

by Stewart Binns

  When I reached the Vatican, I asked to speak to Monsignor Claudio, the Master of the Archives, a tall, gaunt man from Padua. He was very suspicious of my intentions and took me into a small garden at the side of the ancient cathedral before sitting me down and summoning a young English-speaking priest.

  I used Alun’s name and told him the story of Earl Harold’s scribe, Gilbert Foliot, and of Thibaud of Vermandois, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, the recipient of the casket. Although he acknowledged all the names I mentioned, he remained stony-faced and said nothing. A nonchalant shrug of the shoulders was his only response.

  I then unwrapped the Talisman of Truth, the strange relic that I had kept with me since Alun, in his death throes, had hidden it under the tree in Anatolia. Alun had suggested that I should wear it, but I never felt comfortable with the thought and had always kept it firmly hidden from view. I handed the amulet to Claudio; his eyes widened, and his face softened for the first time.

  ‘I remember Father Alun. He was a clever man and a holy one.’ He then returned the talisman to me. ‘But this is the work of the Devil. We have many other of his works here; this amulet belongs with them.’

  ‘Monsignor, I am only a messenger. Alun asked me to deliver the Talisman of Truth and the casket you hold to the King of England.’

  The Master looked at me, clearly reluctant to let anything leave his archives. At length, he relented.

  ‘As you wish; the Cardinal left precise instructions that when an emissary came, I was to release the casket.’

  He then stood and gestured to me to follow him. Accompanied by the young priest, we passed two heavily armed Papal Guards, who looked more like north Europeans than Italians. We entered the old church at the back of the nave, emerging through a small doorway. After nodding at two more Guards, who stood alert on either side of a second narrow doorway, Claudio led us down a long flight of tight spiral stairs into the crypt.

  It was an unnerving, oppressive place, full of eerie echoes, with only two small oil lanterns giving an indistinct glow to its broad arches and vaulted ceilings. The young priest then told me that I must wait with him while Monsignor Claudio went to retrieve the casket.

  His footsteps receded as he disappeared into the murk, followed by the ever fainter sounds of heavy doors being opened and closed. After a while, there was a silence so still I could hear myself breathe.

  I was disappointed; I had hoped that I would be able to enter the vaults and see their ancient tombs and mysterious relics. Legend said these included objects as old as Rome itself, and treasures that would astonish the world. My father had told me that all the Popes were buried in the vaults, including St Peter himself. I had harboured hopes of seeing all their mausoleums laid out in neat rows. But all I could see were shadowy columns and dark voids.

  It was a smaller crypt than I had thought it would be. But the young priest assured me, in a hushed tone, that there was a labyrinth of vaults extending deep underground and for many yards beyond the walls of the nave. Some of the most secretive chambers could only be entered by Monsignor Claudio and the Pope himself, and many had not been opened for decades. He hinted at some of the contents, shaking his head and muttering about ‘precious relics of Jesus’, ‘revelations known only to the Holy Father’ and ‘abominations too awful ever to be revealed’. My appetite was whetted, but I could get nothing more out of him.

  After what seemed like an age, Monsignor Claudio returned with the casket, an impressive piece of craftsmanship with a heavy bronze clasp. He placed it gently on a small oak table in front of me. As I moved to look inside – to be sure it contained all the manuscripts Alun had mentioned – I found that it was heavier than I thought it would be, and securely locked.

  The Master handed me a small key. But before I opened the casket, he put his hand on mine and blessed its contents.

  ‘There are remarkable stories in those pages; guard them well.’

  Everything was in the casket, bound in immaculate sheaves of vellum, just as Alun had said it would be. I added the Talisman of Truth and closed the lid.

  I was required to sign and seal a document to confirm that I had taken the artefact from the vault, then I was led back up into the basilica. As I walked across the nave, Monsignor Claudio called after me.

  ‘If you would like to return the casket one day, please do so. We will happily take it back. The talisman you carry is not a charm; it is the Devil’s Amulet, and it belongs here.’

  I spent a few days wandering the ancient ruins and modern splendours of Rome. It was difficult to imagine what the city had been like in its pomp, because most of the land beyond the Vatican’s precincts was made up of hillocks of debris where cows and goats grazed amidst glimpses of fallen columns the size of trees and blocks of stone as big as a cart.

  Occasionally, a piece of a shattered and long-forgotten statue could be seen – a hand, or perhaps a limb, or a disfigured face. The ground was like a midden of the past, where every step I took meant treading on fragments of the once mighty Roman Empire. In certain places, huge buildings were still intact and some were still being used. One in particular, a great circular colossus, bigger than three cathedrals, had towering arches that contained churches, shops and artisans’ workshops. I was told it was once a place for festivals and circuses, where men would fight in front of huge crowds and where early Christians were tortured and killed for their beliefs.

  It occurred to me that nothing much had changed over the hundreds of years since.

  Autumn was beginning to bite, and I was tempted to stay in the south until the spring. But I knew that our Christmas rendezvous in Normandy beckoned, so I began to travel north. I also wanted to find a quiet place to read the contents of the precious casket. I needed to find a monastery, and a priest whose English or Norman was good enough to help me read the Latin text.

  I eventually found the help I needed at the remote Benedictine Abbey of Sant’Antimo, near Siena. I paid a generous price for my lodgings and, in return, two young monks, one from Rouen and one from Gisors, helped me read the manuscripts.

  It was an enthralling experience. Surrounded by wooded hillsides and the tranquillity of monastic life amidst the abbey’s vineyards and meadows, we chose a different location each morning and afternoon. I tried to follow the Latin script, but eventually I realized it was simpler just to sit back and listen to the captivating stories of England’s recent kings and to the remarkable exploits of Hereward of Bourne and his descendants. I felt highly privileged – especially having known Earl Harold, the man who united the two dynasties.

  I had been a proud Englishman before I heard the accounts, but was even more fiercely so when I finished hearing them. I now felt emboldened to place the Talisman of Truth around the neck of the man who was its rightful recipient: Richard, King of England, the Lionheart, a man who Hereward and Torfida would have been proud to call their King.

  When we had finished, I thanked my Benedictine hosts, who knew little of England’s history and cared less for its intrigues. Even so, I swore them to secrecy before making my way north once more.

  I arrived in Caen well before the Christmas activities. However, to my horror, there was no sign of the Lionheart. Indeed, nothing had been heard of him since we had left Palestine. Queens Bérengère and Joan were there, as was the Grand Quintet, and Queen Eleanor was on the way from Poitiers. A great celebration had been planned; everyone had returned safely from the Great Crusade and, despite Prince John’s malicious endeavours and those of the Count of Toulouse, the Empire was still intact.

  But the feast’s host was nowhere to be seen.

  Nor did he appear in the New Year.

  Anxious for news, Queen Eleanor returned home. Seeking solace, a distraught Bérengère went to the nuns at Beauvais. The Grand Quintet sent out messengers in search of information about the whereabouts of the Lionheart. A flurry of responses came in the middle of January; they brought news that would create a sudden sharp turn in my life’s journey and that of
my King.

  On his way back from the Holy Land, word that the King was travelling through the eastern Alps had reached Leopold, Duke of Austria. He immediately issued orders for the King’s arrest and despatched hundreds of men throughout his domain to hunt him down. The Lionheart escaped from several ambushes and made it as far as a village close to Vienna, by which time he had lost his men in various skirmishes. He had become exhausted and ill with a fever, and sought refuge at a roadside inn. While delirious and unable to rise from his bed, he was arrested by a posse of the Duke’s men.

  Stripped of all his weapons, armour and possessions, he had been imprisoned in less than comfortable circumstances in Durnstein Castle, on the Danube. Duke Leopold had allied himself with Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor, and with Philip Augustus, King of the French. They meant to humble the Lionheart and bring his Empire to its knees. Prince John, ever eager for the Plantagenet throne, was their acolyte. Only Bérengère’s family in Iberia and William the Lion, King of the Scots – who remembered the King’s generosity in the Quitclaim of Canterbury – refused to join the conspiracy.

  Lesser men, jealous of the Lionheart’s prowess and reputation, had him in their grasp and were going to exact a high price for his release. In geld, their price was 150,000 Cologne Silver Marks – £100,000 sterling – almost more bullion than anyone had ever counted before. But more than that: they required that the King pay homage to them in all his lands and domains.

  The demands were unprecedented and created uproar across Europe among fair-minded people – not that this made any difference to the King’s plight. Pope Celestine excommunicated Duke Leopold for the crime of imprisoning a brave crusader, and all chivalrous knights – including French and German men of honour – were appalled. But Europe’s most powerful men were playing for stakes that allowed no respect for chivalry.

  All my instincts cried out to me to rush to the Danube to be with the King, but it made no sense. He was being held deep inside the German Empire, behind the walls of a formidable fortress; it would take an army to free him, or all the silver in Europe.

  Within two weeks, Queen Eleanor had pulled the Empire together and called a Great Council of England at Oxford to begin the process of raising the immense ransom. When she addressed the great men of the land, they gasped at the size of the ransom. As the Archbishop of Canterbury said, it was at least four times the revenue that the King would expect to raise from the entire realm in a year. It would impoverish everyone, from the highest to the lowest, and at a time when the country had not yet recovered from the huge burden it had to carry in order to pay the Saladin Tithe, to fund the Great Crusade to the Holy Land.

  Even so, the process began.

  Every knight had to pay one pound of silver, every lay person had to give a quarter of his income, and every church had to deliver all its chalices and plate in gold and silver. Every lord was required to make a personal contribution proportionate to his wealth, and all the merchants of the wealthy burghs – especially the Jewish brokers and financiers – were asked to do the same. William the Lion of Scotland sent 5,000 pounds, and the Jews of London raised over 30,000 between them, while those of York sent 15,000.

  The silver was melted into ingots and carried to St Paul’s in London, where it was stored in large chests in the crypt under the guard of an elite corps of warriors from the King’s retinue. It soon became the largest treasury England had ever assembled.

  When Queen Eleanor was sure that it was possible to raise the geld, she summoned me to see her at Westminster.

  Although the Queen was seventy years of age, she still looked like a woman in the prime of middle age. She also retained her uniquely intimidating aura, which had only been enhanced by age. As I walked across Westminster’s Great Hall, she was standing at a table with several of her entourage, staring intently at plans for what appeared to be a new wharf by the Thames.

  I stood and waited for my summons to approach her. I could hear her asking clear and concise questions and issuing precise instructions. There was no doubting who was ruling England in the Lionheart’s absence.

  I looked around, admiring the beautiful tapestries that almost covered every inch of the hall’s cold stone walls. There were no hunting dogs by the fire and no straw on the floor to collect the detritus of man and his animals; this was the hall of an elegant Queen, not an earthy King. Eleanor’s floor was covered by ornately woven carpets that she had brought back from Palestine. Instead of dogs sprawling on them, young men lounged, playing music for the ladies of the court, who hovered around them, smiling in appreciation.

  The men-at-arms who stood sentry at the doors, although large and imposing, were much more handsome and far younger than the usual garrison soldiers. They were also dressed more like courtiers than warriors, and wore bright-blue capes and tunics braided with cloth of gold. I smiled to myself, wondering how I would look in such an outfit.

  Queen Eleanor finally noticed that I had arrived, and turned to look at me. She was remarkably slim and attractive in an immaculate pale-blue kirtle and matching wimple. I bowed and she nodded in response, with just the hint of a warm smile.

  ‘Sir Ranulf, I want you to go to the Germans. The King knows you and trusts you. Keep your Hospitaller’s black mantle and cape; they will ease your passage. You will travel with two Cistercians, the Abbots of Boxley and Robertsbridge. Both are Lotharingians; they are clever and speak German, but are totally loyal to me. Both are also physicians, in case the King is in need of care.’

  The Queen was at her impressive best. She had thought of everything and, although she was a mother in distress at the fate of her son, she spoke with authority and clarity.

  ‘Tell the King that all is well with the Empire and that the ransom will soon be ready. Prince John is under control, and Philip Augustus will not make a move as long as I’m alive.’

  ‘Very well, ma’am. What of Queen Bérengère? He is certain to ask.’

  ‘Do you mean, has she produced an heir?’

  ‘Well, ma’am, we all know he is anxious about the succession.’

  ‘She miscarried shortly after she returned from Palestine; it is the third time. I fear she may not be able to carry a child to full term. However, the King does not know about the earlier miscarriages.’

  ‘Should I tell him?’

  ‘Yes, he needs to know that at least she’s fertile. I don’t want him to put her aside just yet. There’s still hope. And, in any event, until he returns, it makes no difference.’

  I bowed and prepared to make my exit.

  Queen Eleanor walked towards me and lowered her voice. In so doing, she became the mother who had been disguised by the Queen.

  ‘Sir Ranulf, give him my love when you see him and bring him home safely.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am.’

  I bent down on one knee and kissed the ring on her left hand. As I did so, she gently rested her right hand on my head. It was a gesture meant for her son, a humbling moment I would never forget.

  Before I left, I was given letters from both Queens, gifts from the Grand Quintet and many others, scrolls of vellum concerning matters of state, and two chests of books, clothes and keepsakes of various kinds. I left my precious casket in the crypt of St Paul’s.

  I met my two companions at Rochester, and we were soon beyond Antwerp and sailing down the Rhine. The spring of 1193 was in the air and the journey, despite my two somewhat dour ecclesiastical companions, was pleasant enough.

  When we got close to Abbess Hildegard’s monastery at Rupertsberg, I could not resist the impulse to pay a visit to find out what had become of the beautiful Negu. It had been almost fifteen years since we had travelled here together, but my memory of her was still vivid.

  To my great disappointment, although Negu was still at Rupertsberg, she was visiting another foundation downstream on the Rhine, a monastery we had passed early the previous day. I was intrigued to discover that Negu had developed a beautiful singing voice and had become one of the
most learned nuns at Rupertsberg. She was even being talked of as a future Mother Superior.

  Although I was not able to see Negu, I did pay my respects at Hildegard’s grave. A simple affair with just her name, carved in her own alphabet, on a plain stone slab, it was set in the open fields of the monastery, not far from the main gate. She had said she wanted to be buried on productive land so that her remains would enrich the earth, rather than have them fester in a churchyard. I smiled when I heard the story and remembered fondly her warmth and humour. Perhaps Negu had become like her?

  When we reached Nuremberg, we heard that the King had been moved to a new place of captivity. Leopold of Austria had bartered the Lionheart, like a rich man’s concubine, to Henry, the Holy Roman Emperor, who had imprisoned him in Trifels Castle in Swabia, an enormous edifice on the Queich River, a tributary of the Rhine. Infuriatingly, we had to retrace our steps.

  When we finally reached Trifels, it was the middle of April. The King had been in captivity for over three months, and I was concerned for his welfare. He was the most restless and impatient man I had ever met; I was worried about his health and his state of mind.

  28. Trial at Speyer

  My anxieties about the Lionheart deepened when I saw the Castle of Trifels. The Emperor could not have chosen a worse place. It sat on a thin crest of rock high above the river valley, surrounded by thick forests. It was as if the castle walls were an extension of the rock itself; they were so high, with so little level ground around them, as to make them impossible to besiege. The nearest village was two hours away, on the valley floor, and was no more than a small hamlet.